


The Collision of Your Kiss

by orphan_account



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Ghosts, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, Vietnam, Vietnam War, War, there are some soldier ocs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 07:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18912760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Klaus spends ten months in Vietnam.Dave is why.





	The Collision of Your Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> **EDIT 10/30/19: This fic is discontinued because I don't feel comfortable writing about the Vietnam War; fuck the U.S. and its imperialism lmao**
> 
>  
> 
> fic title from ["Cemetary Drive"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c1uCHFYG5M) by MCR

 

 

"How the hell did you escape basic with bedmaking skills like that?" Sanchez asks, shaking his head. He's standing at the foot of Klaus's bed, and Klaus is sprawled on the floor beside it, sweating like a pig and feeling lazy. There's a ghost of a man sobbing in the corner and Klaus doesn't want to get up.

Klaus shrugs, smiling. "I'm a real charmer."

"Can the real charmer make his damn bed, please, before Bell gets back?" Dave says, lighting a cigarette. 

Klaus should probably, even just in his head, refer to Dave as Katz, since everybody around here seems to go by last name basis, but he'd introduced himself as Dave, so Dave it would be. Klaus sure as hell isn't going to introduce himself by last name to anybody—he'd seen _Back to the Future_ once during one of those throwback nights at a movie theater and he doesn't want to fuck up a timeline, thank you very much. Hargreeves isn't exactly a common name at any time. If any of them survive the war and turn on the television in a few decades and see a boy named Klaus Hargreeves stopping some bank robbery, well. Who fucking knows what would happen.

Klaus is distracted. What had Dave said? Oh, yes. Charmer, bed. If only.

"Give me one of those cigarettes, and I'll think about it," Klaus says.

Dave glances at Klaus, a smile on his face. "Ask nicely."

"I can do better than ask nicely," Klaus says, because his default mode around men who look like a more rugged Armie Hammer is _flirt_ , and when Dave turns pink Klaus has to reign himself in. Dave had better be pink with embarrassment or attraction, or else Klaus is about to get pistol-whipped, which is no fun. Klaus keeps forgetting it's 1968. Not that he wouldn't necessarily get pistol-whipped in the twenty-first century, but still. Here, he's more likely to die by friendly fire, which would just be embarrassing at this point, even though he's pretty sure the whole damn battalion (is that the right word? Klaus doesn't know) knew he was a damn queer the minute he showed up in eyeliner. If they hadn't guessed it by his face alone, the way he walked and talked was probably enough. Klaus knows what he's like, and he's not ashamed of it. It just happens to be that he landed smack in the middle of a violent war with hypermasculine soldiers everywhere and he could take a bullet to the back at any second. 

The one thing stopping Klaus from opening that briefcase and getting the fuck out of here is that he has no idea how it works and is terrified to end up like Five—alone somewhere, completely alone, in a post-apocalyptic world. Five had done okay for himself, made it back in one bite-size piece, but Klaus knows he's not nearly as smart as Five, and he's damn sure not as useful. People who aren't useful, who can't make themselves useful, don't survive post-apocalyptic worlds. Five made that pretty damn clear.

"Just take the damn cigarette," Dave says, but he's still smiling a little when he hands it over, so Klaus counts it as a win and makes his bed.

 

* * *

The first-name-basis thing for Klaus doesn't last long. 

While on patrol, within the first week, Bell asks, "Klaus, what the hell is your last name? I was looking for your rotation paperwork to figure out what the hell to call you but I must've misplaced it."

"You can just call me Klaus," Klaus says, and he watches his feet as he walks to make sure he doesn't step on anything too explosive. Sanchez had warned him about that the very first patrol he went on.

"Doesn't feel right when the rest of us stick with last names."

Bell is the commanding officer, so Klaus can't push it any further. Klaus mentally flails to come up with something. "Graceson," he says.

"Klaus Greyson," Bell says. "Well, alright, Greyson, welcome to the club."

"What club?"

"The 'this sucks and we're all going to die here' club," Branson says. 

"Thanks, I feel very welcomed," Klaus says. He looks over at Ben to see if he'd thought that was funny, too, but Ben's not here. Klaus keeps forgetting. It makes sense that Ben's not here, since Ben hasn't even been born yet, let alone died, but he's hung around Klaus for so long that his absence feels like Klaus is missing a limb. He keeps looking over to wiggle his eyebrows at Ben, and he keeps waiting for some side commentary during moments when Klaus's new acquaintances are saying funny shit, but Ben isn't here. He's not even here to make a joke about Klaus's new last name, how sentimental Klaus was in that impulsive second when he was trying to come up with something. Grace's son. 

Klaus is still sweating bullets but at least now it's just the heat and not nervousness. Greyson. He can work with that.

* * *

Within the first month that Klaus is at war, there's a debate about height, because of course there is.

"What are you all, twelve?" Klaus asks, when Bell locks the much shorter Dugan in a headlock and starts dragging him around. It's a night with some down time, and the guys have put the playing cards away in favor of whatever the hell this dick swinging contest is.

"Come on, Greyson, you're just mad because you're short," Sanchez says.

"Me! Short!" Klaus puts a hand to his chest. "My word!"

"You are short," Dave says. "You're thin and you're all wobbly, like a pair of worn leather boots that're flopped over halfway down the calf."

"I may be wobbly," Klaus says, because he's usually at least a little off balance when he walks, since he's usually at least a little under the influence, "but I am not short. I don't have anything against short men, I really don't. But I'm not short!"

"You're shorter than me," Dave says.

"I am not."

"You are."

"I am not!"

"Come over here and prove it, then!"

Klaus stands up with a huff and stomps over to Dave. He gets toe to toe with him like some of the other guys had, and he raises his chin like the other guys had, and he looks Dave right in the eyes.

It's the very first time Klaus notices how blue Dave's eyes are.

Dave's breath comes out in light puffs, and Klaus can smell a faint whiff of the canned tomatoes they all had with dinner. Dave and Klaus are close enough together that if Klaus leaned in just a little bit, their noses would touch. He’s got a freckle by his right eyebrow. 

Klaus thinks he could swim in the blue of those eyes. Klaus looks at the way Dave's eyelashes frame his eyes, and he looks at the slope of Dave's eyebrows, and he skims down Dave's nose to stare at the bow of his lips.

Dave licks his lips. Klaus sways on his feet.

“I think I’m taller,” Dave says after a moment, and his voice is missing any goading or teasing. He’s quiet. 

“Just an inch,” Klaus says just as quietly.

"How the hell are you so tall, Greyson?" Dugan mutters. "I do not remember you being this tall." He walks up to Dave and Klaus, and Klaus takes a step back from Dave, forcing himself to look at Dugan and stay standing at his full height, back straight. 

"I'm six feet tall," Klaus proclaims.

"Greyson is a short guy," Dave says. When Klaus scoffs, Dave continues, "An inch shorter than me. Shorter. Short. You're a short guy."

"I'm going to put you in a headlock, Katz," Klaus threatens, and when he looks away from Dugan and back at Dave, Dave is hiding a smile behind his hand.

"You couldn't if you tried," Dave says.

Klaus does. There's a brief round of cheering.

* * *

There's a night after a long fight, after a bullet nicks Bell's helmet but doesn't kill him, after Larson takes two bullets to the chest and dies gurgling on his own blood, after they make it back covered in filth and gunshots echoing in their ears, that Klaus can't get any drugs from anybody, not even a joint, and he crawls under his cot and curls up there and covers his ears, praying that Larson's ghost will stop walking around and trying to ask for a medic. 

"Greyson," somebody says, and it's can't be Larson, since Larson's voice is too wet and gargled to be that clear in Klaus's ears, so Klaus opens his eyes. 

It's Sanchez, who has laid down on the floor in between Klaus's cot and Dave's in order to look Klaus in the eyes. 

"What're you doing, man?" Sanchez says. He sounds tired.

"Oh, you know," Klaus says, wincing as one of the Viet Cong ghosts standing near Bell's cot starts screaming what're probably Vietnamese obscenities again. Klaus can't help but flinch at the first few sharpened, loud words.

"What?" Sanchez says.

Klaus realizes he hadn't finished his sentence. "I'm resting," he says.

"You could do that on your cot, you know," Sanchez says, and then he says something else, but Klaus can't hear it over the sound of Larson's gargled wailing. He's probably just realized that he's dead. 

Klaus squeezes his eyes shut and presses his hands tighter over his ears. He just wants them all to shut up, God, can they please be quiet, can they just let him rest, and he jolts when he thinks he hears gunfire but none of his squadmates seem too distressed about it aside from the screaming of the ghosts so Klaus doesn't move, doesn't wriggle out from under the cot at all. He just lays there and curls tighter into himself and doesn't realize that he's saying, "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up," over and over and faster than a mantra until he's in somebody's arms and they're shushing him. 

Klaus gasps, and then he's hyperventilating because when he opens his eyes there's a crowd of bloodied Viet Cong ghosts around him and he's not under his cot anymore. His eyes glance around rapidly and he sees that his cot has been overturned, and he realizes quickly that he's been pulled onto Dave's lap, and he's _just_ in his head enough to think wryly that this is probably the least sexy he's ever behaved while in someone's lap. Klaus has his hands over his ears and he's basically in the fetal position with his head under Dave's chin and Dave's rocking him like a baby, and just beyond the ghosts of the Viet Cong leaning down Klaus can see their squadmates all turned away from them. Is this too gay? Are they going to get killed? His breath hitches. He survived the mausoleum just to get him and Dave killed by friendly fire in the jungles of Vietnam. What the fuck is his life. His short, short life.

"There's nobody here," Dave says, and Klaus realizes that he's still letting "Shut up," trip out of his mouth all rapidfire and no sense.

"Dave," Klaus gasps, and he shifts where he's curled up, but he can't figure out how to ask what he needs to ask.

"Everybody's worried about you. It's okay, we've all been there," Dave says, understanding what Klaus needs to know. Everybody in the squad thinks that Dave is just comforting a friend, a fellow soldier, or they're going to mind their business if they do know anything is up. 

"I'm not crazy," Klaus says. "I'm not crazy."

"Of course not," Dave says. He rubs circles in Klaus's back. 

Larson stands at the back of the crowd of Viet Cong ghosts and wails again.

"I need a smoke," Klaus says, and then he bursts into tears. 

* * *

They get a week's leave in Saigon. The city is huge. Klaus hadn't expected it to be so big, somehow. When he and Dave stumble out of that dance hall, their first night there, Dave pulling at Klaus's yellow shirt drunkenly—well, the way a drunk man would; both are only buzzed and only act off balance to pass off their physical clinginess to each other—they almost get lost in the streets, too busy giggling like schoolgirls over some joke that shouldn't be as funny as it is but it is that funny because it's their joke. 

"Let's go back to the hotel," Klaus says, "Come on, babe, let's go back."

Dave shushes him, the levity leaving him for a moment.

"I'm sorry," Klaus says, and then, in a whisper, "Come on, babe, let's go back."

Dave continues to look serious and worried for half a second, but then he just gives up and laughs. He tugs at Klaus's shirt again. "This is too small for you," he says.

"How terrible," Klaus says. "I had no idea." 

"You've got a whole field's worth of skin showing."

Dave doesn't really have room to talk, given the valley of his chest he's exposing with his shirt unbuttoned so far down like that, and Klaus points this out to him teasingly. But, to be fair, Klaus wears this striped yellow shirt like it's a crop top. "Wait, wait, you're just now noticing?"

"Sorry," Dave says, and he's transitioned from teasing into bashful. "I, uh."

"What?"

"It's going to sound cheesy."

"C'mon, just say it," Klaus says. "I promise, I have no room to judge on saying embarrassing or odd shit."

"Oh, I know," Dave says.

Klaus gives him a light shove. Dave semi-stumbles away and then leans back in just as quickly, putting his arm around Klaus again, pretending like he's too drunk to walk on his own. 

"It's part of my charm!" Klaus insists.

"Yeah," Dave says. "You're such a charmer."

When Klaus spares a glance at Dave, Dave's looking at him with all the fondness in the world, and Klaus has no idea what to do with it, so he looks back down at his feet, like he's a man trying to make sure his footsteps all end up in the right spots.

"So, come on, tell me," Klaus says. "The cheesy thing."

"I didn't notice that slip of skin earlier because I was too distracted by your eyes," Dave admits, voice low, and when Klaus whips his head around too look at Dave, because _Is this guy for real,_ Dave's blushing like a firetruck.

Klaus wonders if that blush goes all the way down, and then he pinches that thought and puts it in a corner for later, returning to what Dave said, because _What?_

"My eyes," Klaus echoes, "My eyes?"

"They're very—" Dave pauses.

Klaus waits. 

"—Green," Dave says.

Klaus just stares at him for a second, and then he laughs, because it's easier than unpacking that rush of emotions that swept over him at the thought of Dave getting distracted by his eyes.

"Where's all your flowery language?" Klaus teases. "Where's the guy who waxed poetic about how my willowy frame is like—what was it, a worn leather boot?"

"I never said willowy!"

"You were thinking it," Klaus says, leaning into him.

Quietly, Dave says, "Maybe I was," and it's more flirtatious than he has any right to be, and then there's a pause where they stop walking, and Dave looks at Klaus, really looks. "I was trying to think of something to say about your eyes, something about how green they are," he says, "but I just got lost in them again."

When Klaus starts tearing up, Dave doesn't ask why. Klaus pulls him into an alleyway, far enough down that they're swallowed by darkness, and then Klaus kisses Dave more softly than he's ever kissed anyone.

"We're close enough you could give me butterfly kisses," Dave says, putting his arms around Klaus's shoulders like Dave is a girl in a movie's prom scene. Klaus has his hands at Dave's waist already, so he Klaus figures that this is appropriate.

Klaus presses a kiss to Dave's jawline and then another one to his cheek. "What's a butterfly kiss?"

"You've never done it?" Dave says.

"No," Klaus says, and he wonders if this is the part where he's supposed to get on his knees. The shape of the pelvis looks a bit like a butterfly, Klaus thinks, remembering anatomy lessons at the Academy.

"Hold still," Dave says, and Klaus does, and then Dave inches his face closer and closer, never breaking eye contact, and then he blinks rapidly, and their eyelashes brush together. Klaus can't help but blink, too, but there's something oddly intimate about this, about being so close and doing nothing but fluttering their eyelashes.

When Dave pulls back a little, Klaus says, "Was that a butterfly kiss?"

"Yeah," Dave says.

"Do it again," Klaus says. He breathes out a small laugh when Dave does, because it's so _weird_ , but he likes it.

Dave kisses Klaus's neck, a real kiss, and then he gives him a butterfly kiss, his eyelashes ghosting over Klaus's skin. 

"Let's go back to the hotel," Klaus says. "If you hate how small this crop top is, you should take it off me."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," Klaus grins. He leans in and lightly catches Dave's bottom lip between his teeth, and then releases Dave from that soft bite and gives him a peck on the lips, like they're a married couple from a movie. Dave pulls him back in and kisses him for much longer, and then he blinks his eyelashes in a butterfly kiss against Klaus's cheekbones.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They have sex every night they're in Saigon. Klaus might call himself a little hedonistic if it wasn't for the fact that he has no idea when they'll get downtime like this, private time alone together like this, again. Rotations tend to be six to nine months, Dave says, and sometimes they get leave to go to places like Saigon and stay in hotels and dance their days away, and sometimes they don't. So Klaus isn't ashamed of taking advantage of their shared hotel room to have as much sex with Dave as possible. Every time Dave breathes Klaus's name is a gift and Klaus is a selfish man. He wants all of the gifts. He'd never had a real Christmas, though, so he supposes he's collecting some overdue presents. 

And the sex is great, because Klaus is good at it and Dave is somebody he wants to be good at it for, but that's the thing—it's not really about the sex. It's about Dave. It's about the way Dave looks at Klaus without any sort of malice or boredom or irritation or even plain old apathy, which would be understandable. Dave is so goddamn genuine that it makes Klaus sick with want. No one has ever been so obviously infatuated with Klaus before, and Klaus is drunk on it. He's love-drunk and he loves being wanted but he also loves that it's Dave who's doing the wanting. Dave is handsome and funny and brave, so brave, and when he gave Klaus a gun the first night they met of course Klaus forgives him for it, because Dave is not trying to weaponize Klaus like Dad did, he's trying to give Klaus something to protect himself with. Dave thinks Klaus is worth protecting. And that's—that's really something. That's all Klaus can let himself think, sometimes, because otherwise he'd get overwhelmed. That's really something.

He and Dave have stolen kisses back at base under the cover of night, in alleyways and under trees, and of course Klaus takes advantage of empty, parked military vehicles to share a few more intimate moments, where they're both hot and panting and trying to stay quiet, but when they actually have sex with each other it's in Saigon. 

The first time, which is the night Klaus first wears that yellow shirt Dave is so fond of feeling up, Klaus learns exactly how genuine Dave is.

Klaus has already taken his shirt off and is straddling Dave, though they've both still got their pants on, and Dave looks up at him and says, "We don't have to."

Klaus freezes where he is. "If you don't want to—"

Whatever is on his face must be really hangdog, because Dave says quickly, "No, I do want to."

"Are you sure?" Klaus says, and he'd been a little buzzed but this is sobering him up very quickly, and he searches Dave's face for any signs of hesitation or pressure.

"I'm sure," Dave says.

"So," Klaus says, and then he trails off, because Dave still looks very serious.

"Do you want to?" Dave says, and Klaus realizes Dave's gaze is just as searching.

"Yes," Klaus says, and he leans down and cups Dave's face with his hands, and he slowly, slowly leans a little further and gives him a butterfly kiss. "Yes, I want to."

 "I just wanted to make sure," Dave says, and now he's tiptoeing the line between serious and embarrassed. 

Klaus kisses him softly. "You're sweeter than Reese's Pieces," he says. It's easier than trying to explain that that's the nicest thing anybody's ever said to him in the bedroom. He thinks it would bring the good mood down if he told Dave that he's not used to people being nice like that. 

Dave says, "What the hell are Reese's Pieces?"

Klaus laughs, sitting back up. "Forget about it."

Dave raises an eyebrow, and he says, "Do I need to fight this Reese guy?"

"You gonna duel for my honor or something?" Klaus is still straddling Dave, so he grinds a little bit, and then Dave forgets about fighting.

It's not until after the second night, when Klaus is laying in Dave's arms, curled up with him, that Dave, with his fingers carding through Klaus's hair, works up the courage to ask, "Why don't you wear dog tags, Klaus?"

Klaus stills.

"Uh," he says, and then he thinks that his drug addiction must've killed all of his remaining brain cells, because why can't he think of something to say? Maybe it's Dave's fingers carding through his hair so gently that has him distracted. Yeah, he'll blame Dave.

Klaus has to lie, has to say, "I lost them."

Even though Klaus is staring at the wall and Dave must be staring at the ceiling, Dave's frown is audible. "But what if—"

"We're gonna make it," Klaus says, cutting him off, because they're going to make it. They have to. Klaus won't stand for anything else. 

They lay there in silence for a moment.

"I'll remember you, if we don't," Dave says. "I'll remember you."

Klaus gets a lump in his throat and tears pool in his eyes. He blinks back the tears quickly, and he swallows, and he tries not to think about his general uselessness and how he and Vanya have competed for the most forgettable spot in the family for years. He could die in Vietnam and nobody in the U.S. Government would know what to do with his unidentifiable self, regardless of whether or not his body is intact. He could die in Vietnam and his family in 2019, other than Ben, probably wouldn't notice that he's gone until long after they've stopped the apocalypse. Maybe not even then. The really vulnerable part of Klaus, deep deep down, wonders if dying here would be a relief for Ben, if it would give Ben a break from having to watch Klaus spiral disastrously through life high as a kite. He wonders if Ben would be glad.

He pinches that thought and pushes it back down. He forces himself to reevaluate. So, yeah, his siblings, other than Ben, wouldn't notice his disappearance. And he tries not to blame them for it. It's his own fault, after all.

But Dave knows him. Dave would notice. Dave would remember.

Klaus forces himself to smile. "You'd better remember me," Klaus says, making his voice sultry, "after I do this," and he puts his hand down Dave's pants. He does it slowly enough that Dave could stop him if he wanted to, but Dave lets him lighten the mood, and his gentle fingers grip Klaus's hair and give it a light tug when Klaus does the same to him down there.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 It's a little embarrassing, how long it takes Klaus to realize that Dave looks at him often. It's even more embarrassing how long it takes Klaus to realize _why_ Dave looks at him.

 

To be fair, there's a war on. Klaus has to figure out how to hold and aim and fire a particular kind of gun, how to dress in uniform with all of his shit together, how to stay high enough that he won't go fucking crazy but sober enough that he won't fucking die. Klaus can't get his hands on enough weed to keep the ghosts away all the time, and there's so many of them—American soldiers, Viet Cong, and some other groups, probably—Klaus was homeschooled, technically, but he knows fuck all about history—

Not to mention, it's not a look Klaus is used to. When people look at Klaus, really look, and when he's not high or drunk enough to be oblivious to their looking, they usually want one of a number of things—sex, drugs, a show, or for him to go away or shut up. Dave doesn't look at him like he wants any of those things. 

Well. Dave does want to have sex with Klaus—and oh, boy, do they have sex. Not as much as Klaus would like, but, again, there's a war on.

But the thing is, it's not about the sex, not really. That's what throws Klaus for a loop. Dave looks at him not like he wants some sort of exchange or _thing_ , but that he wants _Klaus_.

Dave sometimes seems like a puppy dog, which is ridiculous, considering the fact that he's a thirty-year-old soldier and he spends a lot of time shooting at people. But Dave is all wide smiles when Klaus is around, something fond in his look, something— awestruck? Klaus doesn't know. He doesn't understand at all. Even when Dave takes the time to explain it to him, thoroughly and with plenty of kisses, Klaus still doesn't understand. Not fully. 

Klaus is a fucked-up addict whose aim is almost as bad as his ability to be serious, and Dave makes him weak in the knees because he looks at Klaus like Klaus is the best and brightest thing that Dave has ever seen.

And, yeah, Klaus thinks maybe he looks back at Dave the same way, sometimes. How can he not, when Dave is like that? Like he's the sun? He's everywhere, and he's beautiful, and everyone loves him. Even the most stubborn, sour guys in their troop share cigarettes with Dave Katz.

Fuck cigarettes. Klaus would give him the whole damn moon.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Klaus is in Vietnam in 1968. Reese's Pieces were first produced in 1978.


End file.
